The Forest Echoes Back
by WerewolvesAreReal
Summary: Post-Season 1. Fisk is awaiting trial, but that doesn't mean everything is solved. Karen is acting strange, Foggy's having personal problems – not all of which he actually knows about – and Matt is starting to realize that you really shouldn't count a person out of the equation unless you've personally seen the body.


**A/N: I'm basing this on the new Netflix-series Daredevil, just so you know.**

* * *

When Matt makes his way to the office on Tuesday morning, the city is just starting to wake. The usual, low hum of night-life is giving way to the bustle of people groaning awake from sleep, the scents of fresh bread baking and grease sizzling in street-side shops. People laugh and bicker quietly around him. Cats and dogs beg for breakfast. Cars and buses make his teeth rattle when they pass, but he's used to this, too. Hell's Kitchen is pleasant in the morning – certainly kinder, and gentler, than at night.

Foggy is outside when he arrives, moving boxes from a car into the office-building. He stops and huffs a laugh as Matt approaches. His feet squeak as he turns. "Okay," Foggy accuses, "Why aren't you the one doing this?"

"Excuse me?" Matt asks, smiling slightly.

"This!" There's laughter in his friend's voice, the familiar swishing of sleeves as Foggy gesticulates wildly. "Why am I the one moving boxes in the _cold_ \- "

"It's summer - "

"In the _cold_ while you're showing up _late_?"

"Maybe because I'm blind, and it would be cruel to make me trip over myself carrying these heavy, hazardous cases inside?" Matt says, smiling winsomely.

"Ha!" Foggy snorts, and steps up to heave a particularly large box into Matt's arms. Matt adjusts his grip around his cane to maneuver it properly.

Nearby, a door opens.

"Foggy, are you – Oh!" There's a rapid click of heels as Karen Paige descends the few short stairs onto the sidewalk. "Here, Matt, let me take that – really, Foggy, what were you thinking - "

"Oh, I just thought I'd lend a hand," says Matt sweetly. Foggy snorts.

"I'll finish this," Karen says. "You two need to get ready, anyway. We've got a client coming."

"We do?" asks Matt dubiously.

"We do!" exclaims Foggy, delighted. "Because we, man, are _professionals_." To Karen: "...So who's the client?"

"Let's finish up here first - "

Once inside, Karen sorts through the new supplies and summarizes the call she's received as they look through papers on the potential client. "He says he used to work for an underling of Fisk."

"Uh – I am giving her my most skeptical look right now. Just so you know," Foggy tells Matt. " - _Why_ should we be helping anyone who worked for Fisk?"

"He says he was blackmailed – his family was threatened," she explains. "It certainly seems like something Fisk would do."

"Well, yeah, I have no trouble believing that."

"But it's still a conflict of interests," Matt points out mildly. "In case you've forgotten, we're witnesses in Fisk's case soon. We can't take clients with a history working for him or we'll be seen as having an agenda."

Karen loses some enthusiasm. "I didn't think of that."

"Aw, damn," Foggy says. "This Fisk guy took everything. And now we have to turn away one of our few, actual, honest-to-goodness clients?"

"Looks like it."

Foggy drops his papers in disgust and mutters something that sounds like, 'should have been a butcher...'

Matt's distracted by his own documents, though. "You didn't say he was Russian," he says.

"What?"

"The client."

"Oh. Yes, uh – Shastin Yakovich. Does it matter?"

"...No," Matt says. "I suppose not."

They wait around, but the time for the would-be client to arrive comes and passes. "Even the clients we have to turn down are lame," Foggy says, once they've given up. "Pretty sure he's not coming."

"Who can blame him," Matt muses.

"Hey! I heard that." Foggy raps his desk for emphasis. "Who _wouldn't_ want to be represented by us is a better question, my friend. I bet he'll show tomorrow. Followed by a horde of buddies."

"A horde of Russian, criminal buddies," Matt repeats.

"...Okay, maybe alone would be better."

Karen sighs at both of them. "I'm going to stay late, I think," she says. "Why don't we call it a day?"

"You sure?"

Karen waves them off.

As they exit the building, Foggy leans toward Matt and lowers his voice. "Hey," he says. "You think she's been down, lately?"

"A bit, maybe," says Matt guardedly.

"...But do you know _why_?"

"Do you?"

Foggy huffs. "Always secrets, these days, huh?" But he doesn't sound upset.

"I'm not sure what's bothering her," Matt says honestly. "We all have reasons to be stressed. She was close to Ben."

Foggy is quiet a moment. "Yeah, well, it won't do any good for her to keep working like this." Then: "It won't do you any good to keep 'working' more, either – don't think I haven't noticed that you haven't been returning my calls."

"Hey, don't start targeting me now."

"Fisk is gone, Matt! Who are you after?"

"Right now, I could be doing something about the pick-pocket two streets away," Matt answers. "Or the... yeah, the guy vandalizing a public monument a block from here. Instead, I'm talking to you. I call that restraint."

"Just – be _careful_, okay?"

"Always am."

"Yeah. That's not actually reassuring."

* * *

The papers call him 'Daredevil' now. It is, as Foggy and Karen have said, better than 'the devil of Hell's Kitchen'. At least it takes less time to say.

And the devilish suit, for all its eccentricity, is of great benefit in fights – as Matt is reminded when a knife-blow dashes off his arm with a gush of sparks.

The assailant swears, and Matt swings.

Soon, the three would-be muggers are laid out on the ground. Matt takes a slow breath.

He checks, and finds that the young couple who were being harassed in the first place have long since fled the scene. And Foggy will be happy, at least; Matt hasn't been injured, which is something, though not really unexpected against amateurs like this.

Though, that knife would have cut him in the old get-up. Matt frowns.

He's just contemplating what to do with the inert bodies when he hears the gun.

The click of a gun – any gun – is something he's very sensitive to, on these nights. There's a shot next – the gun has a silencer, he thinks, but it's not enough to block out the percussive noise of the gunshot. It is enough, though, for neighbors to feign ignorance; more than enough for Daredevil to hear, and to mark his target.

Matt doesn't hear any screams, or the sound of bodies dropping, but he hurries anyway. He rushes up the nearest fire-escape, cursing the short building he's chosen, and has to make a running leap for the closest structure. Then he's sprinting across the rooftops, watching the streets melt away in his periphery like lines of thread.

The gun shoots sporadically.

When he gets closer he identifies the exact location of the shots (a Glock 26, he notes). He doesn't drop immediately when he reaches the alley in question, surrounded by abandoned apartments and boarded-up shops. It would be foolish to attack without assessing the situation, for one thing; but more importantly he senses the strangeness of the scene immediately.

There is only one heartbeat in the vicinity; and more than that, it's familiar.

Bizarrely, though, he can't place it.

Matt crouches in the shadows for a long while, listening to the increasingly steady clang of gunfire. Every now and then, the man has to stop to reload.

The motions are steady, clearly familiar. His profile is firm and broad, his skin rasping across the gun with old callouses. Matt smells smoke: sobranie cigarettes, sweet-smelling cigars, burnt plastic and the lingering rot of diseased or dying flesh. This man has been ill recently, or hurt. He smells like something bitter, tart, like the sharp bite of lemons. He smells like airplanes and expensive vodka...

Matt exhales, then impulsively jumps onto the ground.

The man stops shooting.

"Took you long enough," says the shooter.

"My priest might have bad things to say about speaking to a dead man."

Vladimir Ranskahov sucks in a breath, unamused. "Well," he says. "Mine might say the same about speaking to the devil."

Matt takes a slow step forward. Vladimir's pulse remains low and steady. "You survived. You shouldn't have."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's the truth. No one could have survived those injuries."

"Well. I'm here – sorry I inconvenience you."

"Why are you here, is what I'd like to know?" Matt slowly moves away, circling around so that his back is closer to the alley walls. His fingers drift down to ghost over the tops of his billy clubs. "If you think that just because Fisk is gone - "

"Do you think I want to restart my business?" The smile in Vladimir's voice would be obvious, even were Matt not straining to notice every twitch of movement that resonates from the man's body. Heat shivers from him like a furnace, and from this Matt can almost picture, in a fiery outline, the man down to each fine detail; his hard jaw, belying anxiety, the curled and still-injured left hand – _ah, not so well_, Matt thinks – and even the hard scar on his face that doesn't quite convey heat as well as the rest of his skin.

There are other scars, too, smooth burn-marks stretched and hidden under layers of clothing. Matt ignores these.

"What are you here for?"

"To see Fisk is taken care of. Nothing more, nothing less."

Matt highly doubts this. "You're going to kill him, and leave peacefully?"

"Oh, no." Now Vladimir's breath is making puffs in the air, his teeth bared in what could – optimistically – be called a smile. "I have no intention of hurting Fisk. I will... make sure he gets a trial. I have a vested interest in the matter. And once I see he does, well, I will have no issue with returning to Russia, as Anatoly would have wanted."

Now Matt is absolutely certain Vladimir is lying – but, the man's heartbeat is steady.

Hiding something, then.

"So why call me here, like this. Why attract my attention at all."

"You have gained a following, _Daredevil_," Vladimir says. "You would have noticed my presence soon enough."

"Only if you do something to make me notice you," Matt says.

Vladimir chooses to ignore this. "I thought it best to be... courteous. To announce myself properly, and ensure we have no quarrel. I hope you will take it as a gesture of friendship."

"And I hope you will understand if I say that I would very much_ like_ to."

The smile is still there. "I expect we will meet again," Vladimir promises.

"I somehow don't doubt it," Matt agrees.

* * *

"Matt, let me tell you something," Foggy says. "You're the most Catholic guy I know, but the martyr thing? Not as much of a requirement as you seem to think."

Matt can hear the real concern hidden, not very well, under Foggy's humor.

"It's just a bruise," Matt sighs, and ruffles his hair vainly as though hoping he'll sprout bangs. "Think she'll notice?"

"Sooner or later, I'm not sure even blindness will let you get away the 'walking into doors' excuse. Someone will have to be accused of domestic violence. It'll probably be me."

"I'd say that's fair. You made me listen to every season of 'Andromeda' during your sci-fi kick in college, that has to count."

"Hey, that was _quality_ programming..."

They're still bickering when they walk inside the firm. Karen is already in the office.

"...and without that casting... hey, Karen," Foggy interrupts himself.

"Hey guys. Again, Matt?" she asks absently.

"Ah - "

"Oh, the copier's acting up again, Foggy."

"Oh. Um, yeah, I'll take a look at it in a minute." Glancing at Matt doubtfully, Foggy hefts his case and goes into his office, closing the door behind him.

Karen rifles through some papers, sighing. Her movements are slow, lethargic.

Matt sweeps his cane slowly over the floor, bringing himself over to Karen's desk. "Hey," he asks. "Are you alright?"

"Hm? Yeah, fine."

Matt frowns. "Karen," he starts.

Even he isn't sure what he's going to say, exactly – some platitude, perhaps, or an offer to talk. But just then the door opens, and all words melt away.

"Is this the office of Nelson and Murdock?" asks a heavily accented voice.

Russian, Matt recognizes immediately. He starts to turn.

"Yes," he says, summoning a business smile. "I'm Matt Murdock - "

It doesn't take Karen's stifled gasp for him to stop talking.

"Just in case you don't notice," says the intruder considerately, "I'm holding a gun to your face."

"...How kind of you to let me know," Matt can't help but say.

Karen makes a strangled sound behind him.

But the man – undoubtedly Shastin Yakovich, Matt thinks – seems amused. "Drop the cane," he says. "Stand in the corner. You, girl, set the papers down."

Slowly, Matt leans over and sets his cane on the ground. He is careful to be quiet. Foggy's heartbeat is still slow and easy in the next room; he hasn't yet heard anything suspicious. It is best if he stays out of this.

"Come on," says Yakovich. "Move."

The less the Russian sees him as a threat, the better. Matt steps to the side, hesitantly reaching out and bumping against the wall for show.

"We all know why I'm here," says the man.

"Please don't hurt them," pleads Karen. Her voice is shaking.

"This isn't all of you. There's someone else who works here – where's Foggy Nelson?"

Matt takes a breath. The gun is still pointed at him, but he's quick. He can disable the man, even if it means revealing himself to Karen. He just has to wait for the right moment -

"I won't let you do it," snaps Karen, and suddenly yanks open a desk drawer, pulling something out.

A gun.

Things happen fast.

Yakovich swings his arm around just as Karen's gun rises. Matt pushes himself off from the wall, knocking into the Russian's body.

Two shots ring out.

Nearby, objects clatter to the floor from inside Foggy's office.

"Guys?!"

Matt slides to the floor. Yakovich's body comes with him limply, and he clutches at the man to keep him from toppling. For a moment, the assailant's hands seem to spasm and clutch at his sides; then the Russian releases a wet, choking rattle, and stops twitching.

What are the odds – she couldn't have -

"Matt!" Karen falls in front of him, pulling him away. "Matt, Matt, are you - "

Foggy is behind her, his heart beating fast. "I'm fine," says Matt, though he feels hot blood sliding down his front. Not his own. "I'm fine. Foggy, call the police?"

Foggy scrambles for a phone.

Karen's trembling. He's not sure there are any platitudes useful for this situation.

"It's all my fault," she says. "They wanted – they were after - "

"This isn't your fault, none of it," Matt soothes.

"But - "

"They're coming," Foggy says. "Jesus, Matt, come here – there's blood all over you – you all right, Karen?"

No response, except for a slight shuffling. Matt can sense the shifting of weight that signifies a nod, though, and Foggy adds, "Right, just – just, um, don't touch it - " and drags Matt into his office.

Separated from Karen, Matt can hear Foggy taking off his jacket. "Seriously, get that shirt off – who the hell was that? Are there more people coming?"

"I can't hear anyone," Matt says. "He was Russian. Presumably Yakovich."

"You think Fisk sent him? From prison?"

"Maybe. Probably not – we're witnesses, but Fisk wouldn't be so sloppy, sending someone after us in the middle of the day."

"Oh, well, he'd kill us _better_! That's incredibly reassuring, Matt!"

Matt finishes unbuttoning his shirt and slides it off. Foggy thrusts a jacket into his hands.

"What the hell was that, anyway? Karen shot him? You let _Karen_ shoot him?"

"I didn't let her do anything," Matt snaps. "I didn't expect that. I've known she's had a gun in her desk - "

"Since when?!"

" - but I wasn't thinking..." he pauses. "...The police are coming. I hear them. Look, we can talk about this later, alright?"

"Fuck, fine."

Karen is standing very still in the corner of the room when they return, turned toward the window. The body remains, and, yeah, maybe they should do something about that, or leave, but Matt's not exactly sure what the protocol is for waiting around the recently-killed. His _modus operandi_ is usually to beat people and flee the scene as quickly as possible.

The sound of sirens is almost physically painful by the time the cars pull up outside their office. The body is blocking the door, Matt realizes when everyone is reluctant to move. He wonders if their neighbors have just fled the area – no one has yet come to investigate the noise.

He could shift the body. It wouldn't bother him. Then he considers the very real possibility that Foggy will deck him if he tries, and stays still.

The sound of heavy boots coming up is distinct. "One civilian down," says a voice. " - Anyone here hurt?"

"No," says Foggy. Matt clenches his cane, focusing on Karen's reaction.

She is still shaking.

Now, finally, the officer needs to get inside, and Foggy shushes Karen – trembling a little, himself – as Matt sets down his cane, feels around, and drags back Yakovich. If the officer who comes inside is surprised to see a blind man with blood-stained hands, he doesn't say anything.

"Right," he says. "Come with me." A shift; the turn of a head. "I recognize this man – he's a known criminal. You're not going to be in any trouble, okay?"

Karen's crying again.

"Right," Foggy mutters. " - Right. Trouble." They all know it's not that simple.

Matt reaches out, circling Karen's elbow with his hand. "Hey," he asks quietly. "Will you lead me? I'm feeling a bit unsteady here."

He isn't. But she breathes deep, exhaling. "Sure, I – okay," she whispers. She walks slowly ahead of him. The officer takes her other arm, gently restraining, and they walk outside to where the chaos is waiting.

* * *

It takes Matt longer than he would have expected to find the familiar scent from just two nights before. Vodka and sobranie cigarettes, unwashed sweat, the fading scent of airport travel.

Vladimir Ranskahov is smoking quietly under the protective cover of three different buildings, enclosed on all sides. He goes very still when Daredevil silently slides down beside him.

"So," he says at last. "Not friends at all?"

"I have questions for you."

At that, Vladimir snorts. "Don't you always."

"Why did you send your men after me?"

Vladimir taps his cigarette. "I don't know what you mean. I have no men – or, well, very few men. Most people think I am dead. This is not a very bad way to live, when you have enemies, you understand."

"You sent a Russian after me. Shastin Yakovich."

"Racism," Vladimir dismisses.

Matt clenches his fists, but wills himself to stand still. "So you want me to believe that it's a coincidence that I was attacked where I work just after speaking with you?"

There's a pause. Then, a wet sound, like someone licking their lips. "Where you work?"

Matt stiffens.

"...I would not know about that," Vladimir says at length, when it is clear Matt will volunteer nothing more. "Yakovich was my man; now he is not."

"He must work for someone."

"Oh, certainly. Such people always do. So the question you must now ask yourself is, who is that person? And what does he offer, what does he want? More importantly - " Vladimir laughs a little. " - What will you do to stop _this_ one, devil of Hell's Kitchen?"

* * *

Matt patrols the city for a few hours after his meeting with Vladimir, hoping – somewhat without reason – that he'll hear something about the office attack. Naturally, he finds out nothing.

He circles by the office itself, too, but the place is quiet, the only sign of anything unusual being the yellow tape strung around the outside perimeter of the place. The streets are dark and sober in the night, but Matt can hear, in the whispers and distant clatters, things other people would miss; a woman crooning her daughter to sleep, a block away; a cat slinking along a fence, fur brushing the wire with every step; a man walking slowly, steadily, lost in some thought of his own; a woman in her apartment, muttering again, again, "A mistake, why'd you do that, damn, damn..."

He listens, processes, and files away these minor details. He turns and heads home. For now, the city seems safe, but he is not satisfied.

There is someone new in Hell's Kitchen – someone who knows who he is, someone willing to hurt his friends. Someone willing to attack him in his civilian life to get at him.

Foggy he can warn, at least. But Karen is terrified already, and she will be facing her own complications soon. And if there's one thing Matt is certain of, he knows that he can never tell her about his activities as Daredevil now.

After all, Matt probably could have incapacitated Shastin Yakovich safely. What might it do to Karen, to learn that she's killed a man for no good reason?


End file.
